GALLERY: Humboldt Penguin

Discovery: Between 1830 and 1832, the German naturalist Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen (1804-1840) took part in an expedition to South America, visiting Peru and Bolivia. Subsequently, he wrote the first description of Spheniscus humboldti (Meyen, 1834, Nova acta physico-medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae ... : Volume 16, Part 2 - Page 110, Halle). He named it for his countryman, the famous Alexander von Humboldt , who had reported seeing this penguin while in Peru, but did not formally describe it.